As the U.S. Department of Transportation cracks down on schools that crank out commercial driver’s licenses and requires tests be conducted in English, states like Wyoming with long stretches of highways, are also enforcing laws to ensure big rig drivers can read and understand English.
igh-profile fatal accidents on America’s highways involving semi-truck drivers with limited proficiency in English have led to a nationwide effort to crack down on the issuing of commercial driver’s licenses (CDL) to such drivers.
Statistics that the Wyoming Highway Patrol released last week show how widespread the problem is. Out of 16,676 inspections on commercial vehicles in 2025, 676 resulted in violations where drivers failed the interview because they weren’t proficient in the English language.
This was the eighth most frequent violation Wyoming officials cited drivers for, and these are the numbers for just one state. Recently, the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office in southern Wyoming, Cowboy State Daily reported, had a three-day operation in which 82 commercial trucks were stopped, and 32 illegal immigrants were arrested.